W
hat if I were to tell you that you
can transform your waking life
while you sleep? That you could
not only help to solve recurring
challenges and heal emotional
wounds but that you could wake in the morning with
a surge of renewal and joy. You would still benefit
from the same amount of rest, and actually, more
often than not, you’d wake feeling even more
refreshed than you would ordinarily. Sounds like
a no-brainer surely? The thing is, most people don’t
realise they’re actually sitting, or rather lying, on
a goldmine at night when untapped potential lies in
wait, just ready for the taking.
Mindfulness of dreams and sleep is an approach
developed by leading mindfulness teachers, best-
selling authors and dream work experts Rob Nairn
and Charlie Morley. In a nutshell, mindfulness of
dreams and sleep is about using different sleep states
to harness your potential. The first key sleep state
that you can work with is the moment just before
sleep, the hypnogogic state, which often includes
sensations of floating, falling or spinning. Then there’s
the hypnopompic, that broad and refined state you
experience just as you are surfacing from sleep.
It’s possible to use mindfulness within these two
states to increase your levels of joy. Better still, if
you can have some awareness while you are within
a dream, also known as lucid dreaming, you’re in a
powerful place to really effect change.
For me, the most fascinating of the three states is
the lucid state. This is effectively a dream where you
are aware that you are dreaming, and you’re able toexert some gentle influence over the content. Lucid
dreaming isn’t a new thing. It’s something that has
been practiced by various traditions, cultures and
religions for centuries, yet it’s only been in recent
decades that we’ve realised you can actually do some
pretty powerful inner growth work within lucid
dreams, and within the states of consciousness just
before and after sleep – especially when using
mindfulness techniques.
Lucid dreaming is something that can be learnt,
even if you’re not currently recalling many of your
dreams. Here in the West, it was first recognised
scientifically by a Dutch psychiatrist named Frederik
van Eeden, who came up with the term for lucid
dreams in 19 13. But it was in the 1970 s that lucid
dreaming was explored in depth, and various studies
validated and delved deeper into the field.
Before I go any further, let me share an example of
how I’ve used these sleep states to find joy. In 2015 my
daughter was born, and for the first two years of her
life I had post-natal depression. It was a profoundly
difficult time and feelings of joy were sparse. However,
mindfulness of dreams and sleep had my back.
Like many new mums, I had zero time for myself
but lucid dreaming allowed me to have some ‘me time’.
Those constant wakes in the night during the first
couple of years were exhausting, but actually, all those
blurry wake-back-to-sleep episodes meant that the
chance of having a lucid dream was more probable.
I didn’t have time to think about meditation or yoga
during the first two or three years of my daughter’s
life, but I could do these things in my dreams. It was
also a comfort in the dark winters. I would visit
somewhere warm and tropical in my dreams and
wake feeling as though I’d received a dose of sun.
I was also able to use the other sleep states to find
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Charlie Morley
A bestselling author and
teacher of both lucid dreaming
and shadow work, Charlie has
been lucid dreaming for 20
years and teaching workshops
for 10. Find out more at
charliemorley.com